JAKARTA - Millions of people on the East Coast of the United States are urged to stay indoors, while flight traffic slows down and schools cancel outdoor activities, as smoke from Canadian forest fires floats south, enveloping cities with thick yellow fog.
The US National Weather Service issued air quality warnings for almost the entire Atlantic coast. Health officials from Vermont to South Carolina to the west of Ohio and Kansas warned residents that spending time outside the home could cause respiratory problems due to high levels of fine particles in the atmosphere.
"It is very important for Americans who experience dangerous air pollution, especially those with health conditions, to listen to local authorities to protect themselves and their families," President Joe Biden said on Twitter.
US private forecasting service AccuWeather said thick fog and rupiah that stretched from high altitude to ground level marked the worst forest fire smoke outbreak surrounding the US Northeast in more than 20 years.
New York's famous Cakrawala, usually seen smoking, disappears in another world's plume of smoke, which some say makes them feel unwell.
"It makes it difficult to breathe," Mohammed Abass said as he walked down Broadway in Manhattan.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has issued an Air Quality Health Advisory for all five boroughs.Read more: https://t.co/F7mc9xOAhS pic.twitter.com/VVcIbUvRSV
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) June 7, 2023
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has issued an Air Quality Health Advisory for all five boroughs.Read more: https://t.co/F7mc9xOAhS pic.twitter.com/VVcIbUvRSV
"I have been scheduled for a road test for driving, for my driver's license today and it was canceled," he continued.
The air was very heavy for people who worked hard outdoors, such as Chris Ricciardi, owner of Neighbor's Envy Landscaping in Roxbury, New Jersey. He and his crew limit working hours and wear masks because of the large number of fine particles.
"We don't have the luxury to stop working. We want to minimize exposure to smoke, but what can you do?" he asked.
Meanwhile, Angel Emmanuel Ramirez, 29, a fashion stylist at the Givenchy outlet in Manhattan, said he and his co-workers began to feel sick and close the shop early when they realized the smell of smoke filled the store.
"It's very intense, you'd think a fire broke out right across the river, not in Canada," Ramirez said.
Separately, New York Governor Kathy Hochul called the situation an "emergency crisis", saying the air pollution index in parts of her state eight times above normal.
The BC Wildfire Service continues to respond to the West Kiskatinaw River (G70645) and Peavine Creek (G70644) wildfires in the Dawson Creek Zone. These incidents both experienced aggressive fire behaviour and growth over the past 24 hours. #TumblerRidge pic.twitter.com/RvQ6eFgYHu
— BC Wildfire Service (@BCGovFireInfo) June 8, 2023
The BC Wildfire Service continues to respond to the West Kiskatinaw River (G70645) and Peavine Creek (G70644) wildfires in the Dawson Creek Zone. These incident both progressive fire behavior and growth over the past 24 hours. #TumblerRidge pic.twitter.com/RvQ6eFgyHu
Not only that, reduced visibility due to smoke forced the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to slow air traffic to New York City and Philadelphia from elsewhere on the East Coast and the north minimum, with an average flight delay of about half an hour.
Schools along the East Coast have also stopped outdoor activities, including sports, field visits, and rest.
In fact, the Major League Baseball was affected, as the New York total and Philadelphia Phillies both postponed home games scheduled for Wednesday. Meanwhile, the National Women's Football League match in Harrison, New Jersey, is also rescheduled, such as the WNBA women's basketball match in Brooklyn.
In some areas, the air quality index (AQI), which measures key pollutants including particles produced by the fire, is well above 400, according to Airnow, which sets 100 as "unhealthy" and 300 as "dangerous".
During the day (16:00 GMT), Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, recorded the country's worst air quality index, with the reading of AQI 410. Among the major cities, New York had the world's highest AQI on Wednesday afternoon at 342, about double the dai indexes of other cities such as Dubai (168) and Delhi (164), according to IQAir.
Bad air quality is likely to last until the weekend, with a growing storm system expected to move smoke west across the Great Lakes and deeper south through the Ohio Valley and into the mid-Atlantic region, AccuWeather said.
It is known that smoke was billowing on the US border from Canada, where hundreds of forest fires had scorched 3.8 million hectares of land and forced 120,000 people to flee their homes at the start of the fire season.
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